


You Have Left Your Mark

by thoughtsickles



Category: 2 Broke Girls
Genre: Angst, F/F, Femslash, Internalized Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 19:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtsickles/pseuds/thoughtsickles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max doesn't expect much of life. Caroline might just be her exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Have Left Your Mark

Max doesn’t get her hopes up.

Mostly things don’t work out. There’s never enough money, someone always leaves, the timing is always wrong. Life is disappointing enough when you don’t care, it’s just too much to actually put in effort.

So when Caroline moves in, Max doesn’t get her hopes up.

~~~

Caroline is the opposite of what Max wants in a roommate. She isn’t quiet, she doesn’t leave Max alone, and she definitely doesn’t keep to herself. Max wouldn’t admit it, but it’s nice to have someone around to hear her jokes, someone who understands them on the same level. Caroline injects something into Max’s life that hasn’t been there before, at least not for a while. It’s not easy to define—something to do with her constant movement, her refusal to give up on anything, the way she seems to expect things of Max. Max knows that she’s smart, that she has skills and life sense and can take care of herself, but no one ever really seemed to think it mattered before. Not in art school, not at the diner, certainly not with her baking.

So it’s nice that Caroline seems to think they could live these dreams of hers, even if Max doesn’t really believe it.

Max contributes to the savings account. It’s not like she’s ever been in a place where she could buy all the things she wanted or had much money left after food and rent and the damn loans. She’s not sure she can believe in it, though. It’s money, and not much at that, and sooner or later something will come up and someone will lose their job or end up in the hospital and the money will be gone and they’ll be back to where they started. Max wouldn’t mind. The cupcake shop is just a dream, and dreams work best in the abstract anyway.

Caroline isn’t an abstract, and Max would like to spend some time figuring out why exactly that gets to her. But Caroline may not be around for long. Max doesn’t get her hopes up.

~~~

There were other girls. Never anything more than kissing, maybe a little innocent groping, usually drunk and done under the guise of getting attention. Not that Max needed to be on display, but those girls don’t kiss sober, and they don’t kiss in private. They’re not gay. Max isn’t gay. And she’s not one of those girls with the fringey scarves and art-school bangs that call themselves bisexual the way they call themselves vegans. The kissing was always just for the thrill of it, the dare, and there was never any expectation that it would turn into anything else. It was fine. Max liked guys, with their hip muscle things and their pecs and their scratchy morning stubble.

Max doesn’t like Caroline. Or rather, she feels a lot of things about Caroline and none of them fall under “like.” Like is a facebook button. Like is the third-best dress on sale at Macy’s. Caroline is stubborn, and bratty, and not intimidated by Max’s jokes. Caroline has waltzed her way into Max’s life and settled into it with the same ease that she does everything. Caroline can fix any problem. Caroline is annoyingly optimistic, and sometimes Max lets herself believe.

When you grind on your friend on the dance floor, it’s just for show. When you do it jumping on her bed by yourselves at night—

It means something or it doesn’t. Max isn’t sure she can stand finding out.

~~~ 

After getting back from the night shift Max can’t sleep, and Caroline says she can’t either. They wriggle into Caroline’s vagina bed and pull the sheets over their heads, sketching out plans for the cupcake shop with a dim flashlight and an old spiral notebook. Caroline goes back and forth between wanting awnings over the sidewalk tables or just umbrellas. Max says they need a high counter with swivel stools, red and chrome, and windows on both walls.

“I don’t know if renting a corner property is really a realistic goal for us right now.”

“Realistic? This cupcake shop might as well be Hogwarts. And if I’m gonna talk Hogwarts, I’m gonna talk dragons on the Quidditch team and a five-poster bed.”

Max rolls over on her back and stares up at Caroline, hair all frizzy and wet from the shower, not yet straightened, held back with a scrunchie Caroline will deny she owns. When it’s late and dark, Max lets herself think of it always being like this. A tiny apartment and a bed with obnoxiously pink sheets. Making plans under the covers. Waking up to make cupcakes too early in the morning and crawling back into bed in the afternoon. Chestnut in the backyard and Caroline’s vision boards propped up against the couch.

But nothing ever turns out right for Max, so she doesn’t get her hopes up.

~~~

A couple of Max’s friends invite her out on one of her rare nights off, and Caroline is easily convinced to come along, though she insists on setting a maximum limit of $30 for each of them to spend.

“Only one drink per bar. And we’ll get guys to buy them for us, ideally. And we’re only paying cover if we’re sure we’re going to stay there for at least an hour.”

It’s fun enough, drinking and trying to make conversation over the too-loud music. Max isn’t into the gimmicky bars, so she’s happy when they end up in some generic Irish bar with normal booths and a minimum of loud fratty bros. Derek buys them a couple rounds of shots, because the idiot can’t keep it in his wallet, and Max gets pleasantly buzzed, half-following a conversation about the merits of various food trucks. Caroline’s thigh is warm against hers under the table.

Derek makes them all play some stupid drinking game that involves playing cards and is basically a drunken truth-or-dare. Inevitably, it ends up with Max dared to kiss Caroline, with Sean and Derek whooping encouragingly and Jada tolerably shaking her head.

“Come on, Max! Plant one on your girl!”

“You all live together, right? Give us a taste of bedtime at your place!”

"Tell us the truth, Sean. Did you lose your internet connection again?” Max quips. She could do it, she knows. She could kiss Caroline here, in the bar, with her friends watching. Caroline would let her. It wouldn’t mean anything. It’d just be for show, a game, just a one-off souvenir of this night. Remember when we got hammered at that Irish bar and Max made out with her roommate? It’d just be a brief meeting of lips, a little push and pull, maybe some hands. They’d pull apart and laugh and take another shot.

“I gotta piss.”

Max shrugs off the protests and ‘awww’s and fights her way through the crowds back to the ladies’, which is thankfully a two-stall walk-in and not some disgusting one-seater. There’s a few girls touching up their make-up in front of the mirror but a stall open, and Max shoves her way past them and shuts the broken latch. They’re discussing birth control and weight gain or some such shit, and Max leans her head against the faded ads on the back of the door, willing her heart to stop trying to escape her chest.

~~~ 

By the time she gets back to the table they’ve all forgotten about it, having moved on to Jada’s new boyfriend’s apparent lack of musical taste. Max joins in, louder than is really necessary.

“Fall Out Boy? Where’d you pick this guy up, P.S. 114?”

Max and Caroline beg off sometime later, splitting a cab home with Sean, though Max knows Caroline doesn’t approve of the extravagance. She’s looking at Max funny, and Max busies herself with mocking Sean’s coat, which is too old and uncool to even be retro.

They walk up to their apartment in silence, Max calling first shower once they get in and saying nothing else. She doesn’t get into bed after, though, just curls up on the couch in her Run DMC shirt, hair uncombed. There’s nothing to hear of Caroline’s shower but running water, which is unusual, because usually Caroline views shower time as the perfect time to unleash her inner Mariah.

Caroline emerges in her PJs and sits down at the other end of the couch. Max thinks how silly it is that something like the space between two people on a couch could break your heart.

Caroline breaks the silence. “I’m picking up an extra shift this Tuesday, to make up for tonight. We should be able to put some money in the savings account after all.” Her tone isn’t angry but Max latches on to it anyway.

“I’m sorry we had to go and have fun. There’s one more day to add on until we see our dreams! Another hundred bucks before gold rains from the sky and unicorns shit loans. If you really want cash I’m sure Oleg would be happy to pay for a few pictures of your junk.” Max can see Caroline struggling out of the corner of her eye, finally giving in and taking the bait. 

“Why do you do this? I work every bit as hard as you, I go out of my way to prove to you that I’m serious. What do I have to do to convince you that I’m not some naïve rich brat anymore?”

“I’m going to bed.” Max tries to stalk off but Caroline stands up to block her way. 

“I’m sorry if I’m getting in the way of your mopey self-destruction, Max. I don’t see why you have to be so self-defeating all the time.”

“Because the world is defeating! Everyone else defeats me, I might as well get in on the action.” 

“I get it, you know. It’s easier not to try than to try and fail. But it would be worth it! Don’t you get that?” Caroline moves to put a hand on Max’s shoulder but she flinches away.

“What’s the matter, Max? You’re acting weird tonight. It wasn’t that stupid dare, was it?”

“It’s always a stupid dare.” Max looks at Caroline, daring her to look away, but she doesn't.

Caroline swallows. “Max—“

Max can hear her voice crack, wishes she could sound stronger. “Things are good now. And it won’t last, and you’ll run. You can dream all your cupcake business dreams now but when it really gets tough, you’ll run.”

“I’m not going to give up on you.”

“I don’t believe you. You can find somewhere else to live, you know. You’re not on the lease, you can’t just squat here forever. This isn’t some warehouse by the east river.” Max finally turns away and manages to make it to her room. She slams the door and crawls into bed, hoping she’s drunk enough to forget all this by morning and knowing she won’t.

~~~

Caroline was sitting all dressed when Max got up.

“I’ll have my things out of here by the end of the week. I know you didn’t want to take me in and I’m grateful you let me stay for a few months. ” It sounds like she's been saying it over and over in her head.

“You’re leaving.” Max can’t even muster up any surprise in her tone.

“You want me to.” Caroline says, and there’s only the barest hint of a question.

~~~ 

Max knows she gives crap service at the Diner and she gets appropriately shitty tips. Earl gives her a look but wisely doesn't ask what’s wrong, not when her and Caroline are operating in the stoniest of silences, barely speaking a few syllables to each other.

There’s a run on chicken breasts and Max ends up in the walk-in, fetching bags for a harried but ever-crude Oleg. It’s so cold she shivers, letting it seep into her bones. She wonders how long it would take to get numb from it. How long, alone and unmoving, would she have to stand before it stopped hurting.

The door opens and Caroline is there, staring at Max. The freezer used to be Max’s safe space and now it’s tainted, ruined by the memories. Hiding from customers and joking about nipples and laughing at Oleg. Fights and discussions and everything important, everything that matters.

“Stay,” Max says.

“We can do this, Max. But I can’t do all the believing by myself.”

“I’ll try.” Max says. Caroline nods. She leans in to hug Max and Max catches her mouth. It’s shockingly hot in the cold air, like Caroline is breathing fire into Max’s lungs, and their bodies press together in a way that make Max shiver, and not from the cold. Caroline’s arms wrap around Max’s waist and Max holds Caroline’s face as she tugs on her lip and licks into her mouth. Caroline makes a soft little ‘oh’ and opens into it, and Max thinks she could fall in love with that sound.

It means something. Max doesn't get her hopes up, but it means something.

**Author's Note:**

> Now with [playlist](http://8tracks.com/kurenable/won-t-let-this-city-destroy-us)


End file.
